Lethe

The next time he woke up, it must have been an hour later, and he was still in the same spot.

He had lost more blood, and he felt more light-headed, but now he was considerably more realistic. He couldn’t deny it. Link was not coming back. Link was leaving him to die.

This truth had to settle for a few minutes, it was so profound. Link had left. He had beaten him an inch from death and abandoned him in hopes of nature finishing him off.

He was going to die.

Suddenly, Ganondorf didn’t feel so inclined to keep lying there. He wriggled furiously, pushing himself up with all of his strength. He didn’t want to die!

But the pain stabbed him, and he cowered back to the basin of rock. He whimpered a bit. This was all very confusing and hurtful. Link—the Link, the one that was supposed to come back for him, was gone. He didn’t understand why the boy was so stubborn. He had a very clear idea of how Link was to act—why did he refuse to conform to it? He thought Link would rescue him, yet he did the opposite, and now Ganondorf didn’t know what to think.

He couldn’t move. He was going to die what was sure to be a very slow and agonizing death. And Link had just done something particularly ungrateful and out of character. How could any person be stable in a situation such as this?

Maybe he ought to weep, he thought, but it would be such a waste. No one could see him, yes, but there was strength to be saved if he wanted to live.

The more he thought about it, though, the angrier he grew. What was wrong with the boy? He hadn’t even done anything, had he? No, he trusted the boy! He trusted him with a lot, and had even done everything Link had asked. He had led Link back to the castle, just as he had asked. He had come and gone in the castle, just as the boy asked. And he had continued to obey, despite all the conflicts. How dare he betray him and act so ungratefully! How dare he walk away so simply, as though nothing was at stake? Ganondorf burned and felt a familiar illness swell from his stomach.

He wanted to kill the rat—strangle him for being so treacherous and unfair. And how he would have!

But, even if he could move and find Link, he wouldn’t be able to do that.

After a long hour of mental silence, he tried to think of how he must have pushed the boy to do this. Yes, he had said that rather insensitive thing, but perhaps it was something else, too, and maybe if he just thought about it he could come to terms with it. He had been good, hadn’t he? He knew he was trying very hard. There… Was the issue of following him without permission, but that wasn’t serious.

Or was it?

Ganondorf started to panic. What if it is was horrible, and he didn’t even know it? He had never really thought about it before. Maybe it was more than a violation of Link’s knowledge. It was like lying. It was lying. He agreed to stay in his room but instead he followed him…

Oh, he was sorry! He was sorry that he didn’t realize how terrible of a sin it was, and he begged Link to understand. He wasn’t used to telling the truth so strongly. He didn’t know it was such a severe thing to stalk someone, and he swore that he was sorry for what he had done. If Link would only understand that he was trying very hard, and that the stalking was just a slip-up, maybe he would forgive him and save him after all. Ganondorf squirmed all the more harshly, starting to sob and plea. He promised he wouldn’t do it again. He promised he’d keep his mouth shut, and that he wouldn’t act so proud anymore. If only Link would come back! Then Ganondorf would show him how much better he could be if he only had the chance. He wouldn’t say snappy things anymore. He wouldn’t dawdle or try to avoid orders. No, he’d be happy to serve him if he would just take back this awful death sentence. He even promised he wouldn’t stare at the sky anymore, if it irritated Link as it did most people.

No, he would never look at the sky or at birds or at flowers! Not if admiring these things was an action that deserved death, not if Link did not want it of him. He would call Link ‘master,’ he would kiss the boy’s hands and feet, he would press his face in the dirt in Link’s presence, if only this horrible thing could be reverted and Link would give him mercy.

He was sorry and he did not want to die.

His weeping was frozen, caught in his physical paralysis, allowing no shudders or coughs to complement his distress. Nothing could move, his face crushed against the shards of stone, his lips equally still as blood steadily dripped from his teeth. Only the steady flow of water down his face and swirling with his blood could give away the life that still lingered in his crushed body. Knowing he was dead, the corpse continued to cry, the bruises swelling until its limbs were nothing but incurable aches.

He cried silently because of the unfairness of it all. He wished none of this had happened, he wished he could have just rotted away peacefully in the dark realm where at least no one could destroy him so completely. He had never thought about death so urgently, and he shut his eyes in an attempt to imagine the sensation of being one with total abyss. It was so frightening and alien, that even the darkness of his eyelids spooked him. He knew he couldn’t die, and yet he had to. No matter the fit he would throw, death did not care how much he feared it or was unable to handle it. It was going to take him in the midst of his pleas for time, even in his inability to comprehend what it was. His last thoughts before he drifted off into darkness again were of the desert and all of its nostalgia, the bright sunlight penetrating his eyes and soul, the dry sweetness of the air, the bowing palm trees against the sandy gales, the sugars and saps of cactus pears dancing on his tongue, the silver pool of dunes under the desert moon, all caressing him gently in his resignation to death.

Maybe it wasn’t worth fighting against, after all.

**********

There was a crunching noise. Ganondorf was so dizzy and exhausted that he barely heard the sound at first, but as he awoke, the noise became clearer. He wasn’t dreaming, for he could feel the familiar pain racking his body and the numbness of his crippled arm.

Link wasn’t coming back—Ganondorf already concluded this. But someone was approaching, and his heartbeat awoke from its slumber. Hope of survival surged, and without explanation, he felt strong again. He was sure that he could live, and that this approaching figure would save him, just as long as he could stand and make himself known.

The pain was insurmountable and yet he endured it in those split seconds, just so that his limbs may cooperate and force himself onto his feet. His arms and shoulder ached and screamed, but he refused to let the pain overcome him.

He pushed, throwing himself from the ground, and made his way up. With this quick though painful jerk, he steadied himself on his knees.

He looked around only to find no one was there.

Though it made no sense to him at the time, he decided he might as well finish the job and stand onto his feet. He puzzled over the silence, for he was sure he had heard someone about, and he turned around to glance again at the landscape. At first he saw no one, but then he noticed his horse, loose and walking idly. This made no sense to him. Link would have taken the horse, and he had been gone for hours--unless somehow Ganondorf had overestimated how long he had been here. Whatever it meant, something was wrong.

With nothing else to do, he forced himself up and started to limp his way across the rocks and into the fleeting forest. His vision was considerably blurred, and his steps were uncertain and shaky, but the pluck in him still raged and desired answers. He wanted to know where Link had gone, and whose steps were haunting him. If he had to die, he wanted to die without this bleak confusion.

There was a flap and sharp breath from behind him. His head whirled, but despite the quickness of his spin, his eyes only caught a glimpse of the figure before it vanished into the shadows of the trees. All he had seen was white--a shocking, pearly white that gave him the shivers.

Beady eyes stared back at him, a flock of crows sitting perched in the evergreen branches, waiting patiently for him to follow the ivory spark of life. He could feel his heart pounding and his mouth running dry, but his mind had already decided his fate. He had to chase this thing, whatever it was, because he knew that it was the pursuer that had been chasing him from the beginning.

Slowly and deliberately, Ganondorf stepped along the ground, holding his broken arm and swallowing the copper bile in his mouth. The crows never left him, nor spared him their steady gaze. He dragged himself, and they fluttered noiselessly by his side.

The air was still and frozen, the temperature dropping sharply. Clouds grumbled unhappily overhead, and the world turned a dark shade of evening blue. The light was so quickly disappearing that Ganondorf had trouble seeing where he was going, but every so often, the white spark would glisten ahead of him, and he would relentlessly trudge after it. The birds occasionally cawed in encouragement, and he earned an impatient peck or two for nearly giving into his exhaustion.

His feet hit a chilly pool of water, and the cold alarmed him so that he gave the landscape a careful, hard glance. The crows no longer pursued him, and a fickle breeze began, so he believed that this was where he had to stop.

He waited for a sign, and upon receiving none, he sighed and looked to the sky.

What he saw instead were dangling feet from above him, and he heard the slow creak of a rope being stressed and pulled by weight. He lurched and averted his eyes before he could see the hanged body's face. Now, Ganondorf was beginning to panic. He was prepared to go back--seeing a hanged corpse had ended his curiosity and now he wanted to get as far away as he could.

But the crows screamed at him and a lofty, low whisper was carrying among the trembling trees. He desperately looked for the voice's source, but with every flash of white he saw in the brush, it would disappear immediately and appear elsewhere.

The whispering creature laughed softly.

Has someone been punished for insubordination? Pray, tell--what cruel master has beaten its slave? What master has stung it with blade and leather, knowing it could not hope to fight back? Abuse! --Abuse it is, my Lovely, that you should earn such bruises while you are only trying to do what you are told...

Ganondorf heard a brisk splash of water and turned frantically to defend himself. Yet nothing was there was ghostly ripples in the dark water, and as he looked up again, the hanged body had vanished. His heart skipped a beat and the faint laughter echoed throughout his surroundings.

There is so much I want to tell you, Lovely.

"Where is Link?" he asked, but his voice failed him and it came out as a hoarse quiver.

The forest became an array of violent, frightening noises, none with physical causes to pair with them--footsteps, breaths, laughs, shrieks, splashes, creaks--

An icy hand slipped into his, and without so much as a twitch of movement from his own body, a woman stood before him, a woman broken by nightmares and sorrow, but still laughing at a joke only she understood, like a weary drunkard guffawing at the most inane of humors. Her countenance shook like she was afflicted by a fever, and her pearly eyes were set back into her head, hands groping for any life she could find. Her feet swiveled as though the earth beneath her was tilting erratically, and she fought to steady herself in the midst of her dizzy spell.

The woman opened her mouth and nothing but nonsense came forth, all in a hazy, dream-like pattern, speaking as though a thousand voices were crowding through the same passageway. At times, her voice was at a hoarse whisper, and at others she screamed at the top of her lungs, but one thing was clear: there was a mind-boggling, intense sense of terror and rage permeating from every word and line.


"Mom saw the stars in the water. She couldn't resist. She swam and swam and found them at the bottom of the river, sparkling and singing aloud. She plucked them out of place, put them in her eyes... They burned her with fire and ate her alive... We found sister inside of her, bleeding, screaming, a worm festering in Mom's corpse. DON'T WORRY, SISTER, I LOVE YOU EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE A BASTARD AND MOM'S A WHORE."

"Auntie was eaten too, but slowly. She drank in bed, laughing because she found the same thing, except inside of men--big men, rich men, men who took her to bed. NO. DON'T DO THAT. STOP. All they wanted was body, body, body."

"THEY WERE CONSUMED AND NO ONE CRIED OUT."

"Oh God, do you love me? Please, please, love me, I know you do, I can see it in your eyes. ECREAL OPEN THE DOOR I'M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU I PROMISE. You can't open the door. If you do, then everything will stop and I won't be able to kiss you anymore."

--

She smiled at him, and it was the worst smile he could have ever received. He felt black slap him away from any comprehensible reality, and watched as this demon grinned and fretted over its ancient difficulties. He felt such pain, such inhumanity in the air, that he could give no response. He only gave into terror and watched as this long-lost shred of raw memory trailed away into the wilderness.

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